Agencies conducting Search Engine Marketing (SEM) at scale quickly find that the built-in reporting and analysis features in search engine marketing platforms, such as Google Ads, are insufficient.
Specifically, they have limitations in combining and visualizing data, creating visually compelling reports, and incorporating data from other channels like paid social. There is also no ability for digital marketing agencies to create a custom branded experience for clients, like an always-updated dashboard with just the right data that clients need to see.
To solve these issues, there are several dedicated SEM reporting software on the market.
This article covers why TapClicks is one of the best digital marketing tools you can use. We also explore the two main types of SEM dashboard tools and how they support search engine marketing efforts.
What is TapClicks?
TapClicks is a comprehensive marketing analytics platform designed for scalability and ease of use. It offers automated data aggregation from over 250 sources, including Google Ads, Bing Ads, and social media platforms for a unified view of your SEM campaigns.
With customizable dashboards and widgets, TapClicks allows digital marketers to tailor reports to specific client needs for clear and coherent storytelling.
The platform's Report Studio feature lets you create automated, scheduled reports that reduce manual effort. Additionally, TapClicks supports unlimited clients and campaigns for agencies aiming to scale their operations.
Start your 14-day trial and get your custom-built dashboards. Book a demo now.
Two Types of SEM Dashboard Tools
There are two core types of SEM dashboard tools available.
Here's a closer look at each one:
1. Marketing Reporting Dashboard Tools
There are simple marketing reporting dashboard tools available that solve the above issues with native paid search tools. They can extract data from SEM marketing channels, including Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords).
The tool then incorporates this into an analytics dashboard to share with or create reports for your clients. They are usually easy to use but score low on the scalability and sophistication scale.
However, the marketing reporting dashboard has certain limitations, such as:
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Low sophistication: Lack of capabilities for data transformation and advanced calculations. For example, if you want to add a 20% markup to your Facebook Ad costs for your clients, you would have to apply this calculation manually to your reports. TapClicks allows you to automate this mark-up across all your client-facing reports (more on this below).
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Limited scalability: Dashboard template updates don't automatically populate on all live dashboards. If you want to report on a new Google Ads metric for all your clients, you need to configure it manually in each of your live client dashboards. With TapClicks, you can add a widget to your dashboard template, and it will automatically appear in all of your live client dashboards.
Best for:
Simple marketing reporting dashboards are best suited to agencies who don't need either scale or sophistication but want something basic and simple to use.
2. Business Intelligence Tools
Business Intelligence (BI) tools like Tableau and Looker are general-purpose business analysis tools that can take any dataset, including SEM marketing data, and analyze, manipulate, and visualize that data.
As a result, they score highly in the sophistication category. And, if you have programming or extensive experience with these tools, you can do really complex data manipulation and visualization.
However, for that same reason, they are not easy to use, not easily scalable, and require a lot of manual work.
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Limited customization: BI tools don't always have a white label option, and reporting features can also be limited in terms of the level of customization and automation permitted.
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Scalability issues: Like marketing dashboard reporting tools, BI tools also aren't built for easy scalability. They may not have limits on the number of campaigns, dashboards, or clients you can manage, but they don't make it easy to make edits that apply automatically across many dashboards. This is unlike the TapClicks solution, which allows you to auto-update across multiple campaigns and dashboards.
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Not simple to use: The downside of their sophistication is that they are typically not straightforward to use and either require training for staff to learn how to use them or staff who already have that experience. Some BI tools require knowledge of programming languages like SQL.
Best for:
Agencies with the need for a high level of sophistication in their data analysis that don't need to operate at a high volume or scale and have employees or consultants who are competent with BI tools.
Stop struggling with manual updates, limited customization, and complex BI tools. Book a demo with TapClicks today!
How TapClicks Was Built to Offer Scalability, Sophistication, and Simplicity
We've discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the two different types of SEM dashboard tools. Most marketing dashboard tools are simple but lack sophistication and scalability, and BI tools like Tableau can do very sophisticated analysis but aren't simple to use and aren't scalable.
TapClicks was built to be an SEM dashboard tool that excels in all three categories:
Customizability and Scalability of Dashboard Templates
In our experience working with enterprise-level agencies and digital marketing teams, scalability is the most important factor in choosing an SEM dashboard for large e-commerce organizations.
It's the essence of why any team needs a dashboard. Agencies need to easily and automatically show key metrics meaningfully to stakeholders, whether within the company or to clients. If a dashboard tool isn't scalable, agencies can spend tens or even hundreds of hours manually creating reports.
Many of the tools we’ve discussed, including native paid search platforms, offer limited customization options. As a result, there are restrictions on how data is viewed and which datasets can be combined. This limitation can hinder the comprehensive analysis and optimization of marketing campaigns.
Analyzing key metrics side by side—such as Google Ads and sales data—is essential for evaluating your SEM strategy.
The TapClicks SEM dashboard solution lets you customize multiple dashboards down to the specifics of each chart and table (referred to as "widgets" in TapClicks), and create templates around these, which allows you to scale those customizations across many clients.
Widget Customization
TapClicks offers an SEM marketing dashboard solution with customizable templates that update automatically. We have ready-made templates for PPC, social media marketing channels, ad networks, and email campaigns.
You can create and customize them once (e.g. for Google Ads) and not have to constantly update them individually each week or month come reporting time. So an agency can create a dashboard full of custom widgets for Google Ads campaigns across multiple clients and not have to update a particular graph or chart for every single client's dashboard.
Each dashboard is made up of highly customizable widgets, which are graphs or charts. These can be removed completely or edited. And, if you want to add different widgets, you can easily create a new one.
For example, your Google Ads dashboard could be showing the past month of data while your widget that reflects impressions could show data from the last six months. This means you can customize it to reflect whatever your clients or stakeholders need to see from those metrics.
You can also integrate data from multiple channels into one metric so your data is blended into whichever format you want:
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Bar graphs
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Line graphs
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Pie charts
You can also customize the colors and create attractive visualizations for clients which they can easily understand.
Notably, any non-technical person or marketer can create these custom graphs in a few clicks. Unlike BI tools like Tableau, you don't need to have extensive training (or often any training at all) to create these graphs or charts.
Apply Template Updates Across Many Dashboards
One major drawback of lightweight marketing dashboard tools is the need for manual updates across all dashboards.
For example, if Google Ads introduces an update, you must adjust each client's dashboard individually—a time-consuming and laborious process. While changes may apply to new dashboards, existing ones often remain outdated.
With TapClicks, any modifications to report templates are automatically applied to all live dashboards, eliminating the need for retroactive updates.
This significantly improves efficiency, allowing agencies to scale and manage multiple reporting dashboards with ease. Additionally, if needed, you can still make changes to a single dashboard without affecting others.
Get your custom-built dashboards. Book a demo today!
Manage Many Dashboards from One Environment
Many lightweight marketing dashboards and BI tools impose limits on the number of clients or campaigns, which can be a major restriction for agencies managing multiple accounts.
With TapClicks, there are no limits—you can manage all your campaigns and clients in one place, making it the ideal solution for agencies looking to scale. Key benefits of TapClicks for scaling agencies include:
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Unlimited clients & campaigns - Unlike other SEM reporting tools, TapClicks does not cap the number of clients or campaigns you can run.
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Unified data aggregation & reporting - All your data flows into TapClicks via smart connectors—250+ marketing-specific API connections to leading platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads.
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Customizable dashboards for multiple clients - Easily set up as many dashboards as you need. If you have several clients with Google Ads data, it's easy to set up a generic Google Ads dashboard.
With TapClicks, you can scale your SEM strategy effortlessly while keeping all the data in one powerful, automated platform.
TapClicks Data Transformation Features
When you're running multiple campaigns for lots of clients, you're dealing with a lot of data. This needs to be aggregated from several different sources and stored within a database or data warehouse.
And, once you've managed to do that, there's often a need to do data transformation: the process of changing the format, structure, or values of data.
Here are some use case examples that TapClicks users find invaluable:
Standardizing the Names of Data Sets
Often different platforms use similar terms to describe the same thing: impression, imp, hit, or view. TapClicks allows you to easily standardize data sets so that metrics that mean the same thing can have one label, for example, “impression.”
This simplifies omnichannel data analysis and enables clear, cohesive reporting, making it easier for clients to understand.
Displaying or Hiding Mark Up Costs For Clients
If you're buying a Facebook Ad and you're given a CPM of $3, you might want to mark that up by 20% for your client. With TapClicks there is a mark-up margin function. It's easy to configure this so that it always adds the 20% markup to all your Facebook data.
You can then choose to only show the client that cost and it will be automatically applied to all the metrics associated with it, for example, the cost per click (CPC).
These are just two examples of the data transformation capabilities TapClicks offers. Executing them manually would require significant effort, and most other dashboard tools lack this functionality.
In addition to these use cases, our data transformation and advanced calculation features provide users with a high level of flexibility and customization for viewing and manipulating their data.
Recommended Reading
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Examples of TapClicks SEM Dashboard
Our SEM dashboard templates are ready for you to use. And, if there's one that you need help customizing, the TapClicks Professional Services Team will help you do that.
Here are some examples of SEM dashboards and widgets we can set up for you for your Google Ads campaigns.
KPI Performance
This chart displays one month's Google Ads performance against marketing KPIs, with four widgets tracking impressions, clicks, cost, and conversions. Users can customize chart types and colors for clear insights.
Unlike basic tools, TapClicks allows full customization of metrics and trends—month-over-month or year-over-year—without being limited to a preset list.
Performance Trends
These charts compare conversions vs. impressions in a Google Ads campaign, with one showing cost per conversion and the other cost vs. clicks and impressions.
Many lightweight marketing dashboards struggle with overlaying multiple metrics with different y-axis scales and custom graph types. With TapClicks, these charts can be created and added to your SEM dashboard in minutes.
Brand Campaign Performance
The top section of this image shows a simple but effective graphic of the cost performance of a Google Ads campaign (total spend, average CPC, conversion rate, and cost per conversion).
The bottom section gives us a breakdown of how successful different keywords have been in the campaign. This means that you have a deeper insight into exactly which keywords are working well so you can decide whether to adjust your marketing strategy.
Overall Campaign Performance
This comprehensive chart shows multiple Google Ads campaigns viewed alongside one another across a quarter, with key metrics indicating whether these have gone up or down during that period.
This deep insight is simple to set up within TapClicks and informs marketers and clients on how to adjust budgets and campaign focus.
Gain complete visibility into your campaign performance. Book a demo and try TapClicks for free now!
Experience Seamless SEM Reporting with TapClicks
We've seen how lightweight marketing dashboard tools and BI tools are limited in giving you the aggregation, analysis, and reporting functions you need for your SEM activities. They also lack scalability, are either too sophisticated or not sophisticated enough, and are not always simple to use.
We built the TapClicks dashboard solution to provide the perfect balance. It provides the capability for agencies to scale across many campaigns and clients with ease whilst also providing the depth of functionality required for conducting multiple SEM campaigns.
FAQs About SEM Reporting Tools
What is the best SEM tool?
The best SEM tool depends on your needs. TapClicks, in particular, stands out for its automated SEM reporting, data integration, and scalability. Other popular options include Google Ads for campaign management, Google Search Console, and SEMrush for keyword research.
What is SEM reporting?
SEM reporting involves collecting and analyzing data from search engine marketing campaigns to track key performance metrics like clicks, impressions, conversions, and ad spend. Businesses use this data to understand campaign effectiveness and improve their overall ROI.
Can I integrate TapClicks with Google Ads, Google Analytics, and other platforms?
Yes, TapClicks connects with Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Bing Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, and 250+ marketing platforms using smart connectors.
What are the best search engine marketing tools for agencies?
The best search engine marketing tools vary based on your agency’s needs. TapClicks is ideal for automated SEM reporting, while Google Keyword Planner helps with keyword research. Other popular options include SEMrush and Ahrefs for keyword rankings and competitive analysis, and Google Ads for campaign management.
How can PPC reporting tools improve a PPC marketing campaign?
PPC reporting tools help track important metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions in real time. They provide insights into ad spend efficiency and highlight areas for improvement. A platform like TapClicks can consolidate PPC marketing campaign data across multiple sources, allowing agencies to create automated reports and optimize campaigns.
